>I must confess I don’t really have anything planned for this, the 200th post here at Shouts from the Couch. I came here today to talk about DeathSpank.

DeathSpank is a downloadable action-RPG, which sounds like it ought to be terrible. But it’s written by Ron Gilbert, of Monkey Island fame, so that’s promising. And it’s got a fascinating and unique art design, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen outside of something like Animal Crossing. And it’s legitimately funny, and probably features the best voice acting of any game in 2010 (yes, better than Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption), and the combat is simple but not totally mindless, and there’s so much to do, and it’s so well done.

The quest is a search for The Artifact, which appears to be a piece of bacon. The side quests are mostly of the “fetch this for me,” or “kill 10 of those things” variety, but they are all very funny, and I’ve found myself doing as many quests as possible just so that I can hear more of the incredibly well-written dialogue. And sometimes there are little puzzles that go on top of these quests; they’re not terribly difficult, but they certainly make an easy side quest that much trickier, and everything is just so goddamned witty and awesome. At one point I found myself getting mobbed by tiny little Irish dudes and they all laughed and cackled and I nearly had to put the controller down, I was giggling like an idiot.